


laugh until our ribs get tight

by inamorromani



Category: Naruto
Genre: Character Study, Gen, KAKASASUS PLEASE DNI, M/M, Minor Character Death, NOT KAKASASU, With that out of the way, izzys a commie, kakashi is everybodys kooky uncle, lord jesus god this was hard to write, the gang defects and tries to overthrow the government, uhhhhhhhhhhhh idk, will i ever write a naruto fic without at least MENTIONING madara? remains to be seen, yamato is confused as fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:28:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22763983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inamorromani/pseuds/inamorromani
Summary: When it comes down to it, he thinks he probably hates Konoha just as much as Sasuke does.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi & Uchiha Sasuke, Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka, Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto, implied kakairu anyways
Comments: 47
Kudos: 409





	laugh until our ribs get tight

**Author's Note:**

> for my dear odera!!!! happy belated birthday........! sorry this took me so long but i hope you (and the rest of kkv gang) enjoy it!<3

There’s a mountain spring that runs along the Fire Country border like a fault line, straight as fox whiskers and rich with minerals that are ideal for conditioning heavy fabrics like canvas. It’s hostile, beautiful, impractical- Sasuke much prefers it to the sterility and unwelcoming atmosphere of the laundromat in Konoha, though it’s admittedly inconvenient when the occasional strong current drags his clothes along the river’s underbelly. He thinks, grimly, that moving mass of cloth and cotton reminds him of a mouse, or some other great, living mass moving down the length of a snake’s stomach, causing it to bulge. 

He wrinkles his nose and smoothes a crease in his half-dry leggings where they sit beside him, drying in the dying summer sun. 

Orochimaru is long dead, Team Taka long defunct, Kabuto long since resigned to Orochimaru’s- and by extension, his- failure and wholly uninterested in Sasuke, content to grieve and wallow in the empty cavern of his laboratory. 

Sasuke knows he should be happy, that he should feel some semblance of gratitude to somebody, anybody, but more than anything, he just feels unfulfilled, and maybe a little lost. 

He wasn’t really certain of Itachi’s whereabouts, either. He had heard rumors that his older brother had succumbed to a mysterious illness, had heard that the Akatsuki excommunicated him for some reason, and that the entire organization had been tried and executed for their crimes against the great nations. There was at least some partial truth to that- Kakuzu had been killed by Konoha-nin, and Hidan had been buried alive somewhere on the Nara compound some time ago- but Sasuke had grown progressively more disinterested in the Akatsuki as time went on.

Frankly, he had grown disinterested in everything. It was easy to be disaffected, so far from home, living in what anybody else would probably consider extreme isolation. He often read to pass the time, old diaries of Uchiha Madara written in dead ciphers and his already indecipherable handwriting, war and romance novels from trading posts, pamphlets and holy texts from temples and monasteries the world around. He stole, too, from time to time, though he’d gradually made it a point to travel lighter and lighter- an earring here, a set of bangles there, the occasional newspaper, thrilling things and pointless things. 

The Uchiha fortune sat in some vault back in Konoha, collecting dust. Sasuke lived off odd jobs and mercenary work. It was easy to make himself a weapon, to market himself like a shiny, silver tool- hard to damage, difficult to weild. It was easy to make himself enticing to cruel people. 

Sasuke only allows himself to dream while he watches his laundry dry. 

He thinks about Sakura. She had been stupidly, senselessly devoted to him. It was cloying and comforting at the same time- the sort of balance that was very easy to get used to. She was bookish and kind and insufferable, and very transparently in love with the Yamanaka heiress- in some ways Sasuke had looked to her as a mirror. 

He thinks about Naruto, about the brightness of his eyes and the texture of his hair. Sasuke thinks maybe, just maybe, if he had stayed, he could have loved Naruto properly, could have used Naruto’s pain as a balm to his own. Naruto made it easy for him to be selfish, easy for him to consider his own needs when nobody else did- when nobody else considered that he had needs in the first place. 

Sasuke rubs the bridge of his nose. 

It’s late summer now, and the countryside is colored deeply green in a way that Sasuke likes to describe as “luxurious”, awash with huge, velvety leaves like the fabled mokuton of the first Hokage. In the setting sun, the water casts orange and violet phantoms across the dry banks, rippling with gold and silver fish and streams of trapped gas. His clothes are still damp beside him, but he figures there’s no harm in staying the night where he is. The water is cool and clear, and there’s more than enough rabbits to snare underfoot, even if their meat makes him a little sick.

He falls asleep beside his laundry, and wonders if this kind of lifestyle is even a little bit sustainable.

He dreams about his brother that night. 

Itachi comes to him, frail and pallid and draped in lengths of willow tree like robes, his eyes red through and through, like dye has leached from his pupils to the whites of his eyes and stained them sickly pink. Sasuke is petrified- or rather, his brother has him cornered between the kitchen counter and the refrigerator in their childhood home. Beneath him, the floor bobs up and down like a tide pool. Sasuke clenches his teeth. 

When Itachi extends his first two fingers for Sasuke’s eyes, he can focus on nothing but the dry, cracked skin of his nail beds, the way his fingernails look the same as they always have where the paint peels off. 

When Sasuke wakes up, somebody is touching his bicep. 

Ordinarily, in the aftermath of a nightmare, he’ll jerk awake in a cold sweat and scramble to start a seal, pause halfway through a jutsu staring unseeingly ahead until his mind and his body reconvene somehow. Even on his best nights, there’s a sort of icy terror that comes with waking up, an awareness. This morning- if it’s morning, really- everything is hazy. He’s warm, he’s comfortable, there’s a looseness in his chest he hasn’t felt for years. 

He opens his eyes very slowly, the world swimming in a shroud of grey. There’s a sharingan eye hovering above his face, inflamed from overuse, and the plush, olive colored fabric of a Konoha flak jacket in his peripheral vision. 

He tries to groan. He thinks, distantly, that he may be caught in a genjutsu, but he doesn’t have the wherewithal to release it just yet. 

Somebody is shaking his shoulder. 

“Hey,” comes a muffled voice, “Hey, hey.”

It might not even be a genjutsu. Maybe he’s still only half awake.

There’s a sudden, sharp pain radiating from behind his left eye down to his last rib, like somebody is trying to pull every nerve in his body taught. He can feel a thin trickle of blood run down his face into his hair. 

“I expected you to attack me,” the disembodied voice continues, “Sasuke, I’m not here to hurt you. Deactivate your sharingan.”

Sasuke doesn’t know if he can, honestly. His sharingan, for lack of a better term, had been on the fritz lately. Sometimes he was laid up for days with headaches, usually holed up in a motel room with a gallon of water and the curtains drawn. Sometimes his eyes started bleeding. Sometimes his mangekyo burned in his eyes for hours at a time, stubbornly refusing to deactivate. If Madara’s journals were anything to go by, this was fairly typical for anybody with the mangekyo, but the Uchiha had gradually learned to manage the symptoms of overuse with folk cures. 

“Your eyes look dead,” the voice says, bemused. Sasuke thinks it sounds sort of familiar, now. 

“I’m not dead,” Sasuke says plainly. Another trickle of blood drips down his face from the corner of his eye. 

“I said your eyes look dead,” the voice quips, “Sasuke, deactivate your sharingan. You’re bleeding.” 

Sasuke doesn’t react. He’s not really sure he can. 

Slowly, he feels his shoulders being drawn up. He groans. 

The river comes into focus very, very slowly as somebody rubs slow, awkward circles on his back. It’s a considerate gesture, albeit one Sasuke isn’t sure he knows how to react to. It’s the sort of thing his mother did for him when he caught colds as a child, or when his stomach bothered him. He feels a little nostalgic. A little sad. Mostly still numb. 

As if on cue, his stomach lurches and he doubles forward, hanging his head between his knees and retching.

He dry heaves for a minute, which is somehow worse than just vomiting. Whoever is rubbing his back doesn’t stop, but Sasuke becomes peripherally aware of a soft, sniffling sound somewhere around his knees. He braces his hands beside his hips to steady himself. 

“You could’ve thrown up on your nice clean laundry, but you didn’t,” the voice says, surprisingly gentle, “I consider that a win. Now sit up straight and deactivate your sharingan before you bleed to death.” 

Slowly, slowly, Sasuke complies. The world gets soft around the edges again, bearable to look at. There’s the velvety green of the forest across the river, the blue of the mountains, the slate shelves of the riverbank and his laundry in neat, damp piles beside him. 

Kakashi maneuvers around Sasuke so he’s sitting back on his haunches at his side. 

It takes Sasuke’s body a moment to catch up to his mind before he’s on top of the man, straddling his chest and throwing blind punches in the hopes he catches the man’s nose and incapacitates him at least for a moment. Kakashi turns his head sharply to the side and grimaces, bringing his knee up to Sasuke’s side with just enough force to knock him back onto the ground. 

Sasuke scrambles for his sword, but Kakashi catches his wrist, jerking his arm back roughly and holding him still. 

“If you move, you’ll dislocate your shoulder,” Kakashi says, humorless but not unkind, “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m not going to hurt you. I thought I made that perfectly clear to you here just a second ago.” Sasuke swings at Kakashi with his free hand, and Pakkun comes sailing through the air to seize his wrist in his mouth. 

Sasuke grits his teeth- clearly, Pakkun had meant to incapacitate rather than injure him, but goddamn if his teeth aren’t sharp, and his upper body is bent at an unnatural angle that’s forced him to stretch muscles in his side he’d frankly forgotten he had. He reaches for Kakashi’s hand in an attempt to force their fingers into a seal together, but Kakashi’s grip is unyielding.

Now that his eyes have adjusted to the dim morning light, Sasuke can clearly see how tired Kakashi looks. His hitai-ate is missing, his short, silvery hair hanging loosely around his face, both of his eyes bruised from sleeplessness, his mask rust-colored in spots from old bloodstains. 

“I probably look about as bad as you feel,” Kakashi says, tightening his fingers around Sasuke’s wrist as he tries to jerk out of his grip, “Sasuke, I’m not here to hurt you.” 

“I don’t know why the fuck else you’d be here,” Sasuke snaps, “Let go of me before you kill us both.” 

“Spare me then, will you?” Pakkun asks, his gruff voice muffled by his mouthful of Sasuke’s arm. Sasuke shakes his arm furiously. In response, Pakkun only tightens his jaw. The pressure isn’t unbearable, not yet, but it’s certainly uncomfortable now. Sasuke has the sudden, animalistic urge to growl at him. 

“Please calm down,” Kakashi says, a little bit pleading, tightening his grip on Sasuke’s wrist, “I promise I’m not trying to hurt you.” 

“It’s not like I care if you do,” Sasuke says sharply, “It’s the principle of it.”

Strangely enough, that seems to shut Kakashi up. His grip on Sasuke loosens a little, and after a moment Pakkun withdraws as well, sitting back on his haunches. Sasuke takes advantage of the opportunity to tear from Kakashi’s grip and go for his sword, whirling around and angling the tip of the blade beneath his chin. 

Pakkun jumps to his feet, but stays shock-still in his place, ears perked like he’s awaiting an order. Kakashi is looking up the length of the blade, his eyes narrow and unafraid. It’s infuriating, but at least it’s not Naruto. Sasuke tilts Kakashi’s head back with the flat edge of his sword, glowering down at him. 

“...Have you been well?” Kakashi asks, decidedly casual, “I don’t imagine you have been.”

Sasuke scoffs and presses the tip of his sword threateningly against the underside of Kakashi’s chin. “Are you trying to tell me that I look like shit?” he sneers, “That I’ve lost weight? That I’ve gone soft? If that’s the case, it’s in your best interest to be forthright with me before I cut your head off.” 

“Hey, hey. Let’s not be so hasty. You look fine, and you’re certainly mean as ever,” Kakashi says. He’s aloof as always. It’s really, really infuriating. Sasuke thinks he might blow a blood vessel in his eye. 

“But it isn’t a stretch to assume you’ve been lonely, is it?” 

Sasuke stiffens. He says nothing. 

“Maybe you have gone a little soft, but I imagine that has something to do with how tired you are.” 

“Shut up.”

“I’m not saying it to degrade you.”

“Bullshit.” 

“I’m not,” Kakashi sighs, exasperated, “I’m here to help you, after all.”

Sasuke snarls. He tosses his sword aside and seizes the front of Kakashi’s undershirt, dragging him upwards at an angle just so that when his fist connects with his face, it almost certainly shatters his nose. 

Immediately, Kakashi’s hand shoots up to cover his face. If it’s a clone, it doesn’t evaporate. Sasuke feels a little smug. 

Pakkun launches himself at Sasuke and digs his teeth into the tendon at his heel. Sasuke makes a rather undignified sound as he slams into the ground, hip-first, and Kakashi scrambles to pin his arm behind his back again. With his other hand, he presses Sasuke’s face against the ground. 

There’s blood on both of his hands, and now it’s on Sasuke’s clothes, and on laundry day, of all days. He glowers. 

Kakashi takes a labored breath.

“You’re still a terror, do you know that?” he asks, yanking Sasuke’s hair a bit harder than necessary, “I come all this way to help you overthrow the government, and you break my nose.” 

“You’re so full of shit,” Sasuke barks. 

Kakashi maneuvers himself, a bit awkwardly, so he’s holding Sasuke’s arm behind his back with his knee, and brings his free hand up to yank down his mask. Sasuke can barely make out his features through the blood pouring out of his nose, but he takes note of the fine lines around the corners of his mouse and his nose, the brown bruises beneath his eyes from exhaustion.

He’s cursing, and his sharingan eye is bloodshot through and through. It’s a little hard for Sasuke to look at. He relaxes beneath Kakashi’s grip, a little defeated. 

“I can’t believe you broke my nose,” Kakashi mutters, sounding more annoyed than angry, “You broke my nose. I must really be getting on in years.” 

Sasuke lets a silence settle between them, then. He feels Pakkun settle beside his outstretched legs, listens to his harsh breathing and the impressive string of swears coming from Kakashi’s mouth. He shifts slightly, trying to get at least a little bit comfortable, and surprisingly, Kakashi lets him. 

“It’s laundry day,” Sasuke says finally, “You fucked up my clothes with your blood on laundry day.” 

Kakashi gives a dry little laugh. “And, like I said, you broke my nose.”

“I guess that makes us even,” Sasuke huffs. Kakashi laughs again, and loosens his grip on Sasuke’s hair almost completely. 

“I guess it does.” 

After a while, Pakkun wanders off, leaving Sasuke to help Kakashi tend to his broken nose alone. 

It was a fairly horrific injury, all things considered, but Kakashi gives little indication that he’s uncomfortable besides the occasional huff or wince. Sasuke cleans the open wound on the bridge of his nose with alcohol, which earns him a hiss. 

“Sorry,” Sasuke says dryly.

“It’s alright,” Kakashi says earnestly, “It’s my fault. I’m the one who should be sorry.” 

Sasuke just shakes his head and folds the length of cloth over a second time, carefully wiping the outside edges of his nostrils to clean the quickly-congealing blood away. 

Up this close, Kakashi’s sharingan is a little unsettling. He’d never really had the opportunity to spar with any other sharingan users before; his clan had been killed just before he came of age, and he’d only fought Kakashi the once- twice? He isn’t sure. 

He can’t remember a thing these days, and he hates it. He finds that trying to relive a memory too many times tarnishes it, and so he turns to daydreams for comfort instead, fantasizes about his head on Naruto’s chest, about sleeping in his sparse apartment and letting himself be cared for in a way he knows he doesn’t deserve. 

He bites his tongue. If he doesn’t, he knows he’ll start asking Kakashi how everyone is, if Sakura had finally accepted her feelings for the Yamanaka girl, if Iruka has paid his tab at Ichiraku’s yet, if Naruto has come any closer to realizing all of his dreams. He wants to ask Kakashi how he is- how he really is, why he’s here in the first place. He wants to hear Kakashi say, in that aloof manner of his, “you have always been my favorite”, to ruffle his hair affectionately the way Itachi would- the way his mother would, the way Shisui and Fugaku and all of his aunts and uncles and cousins would.

He rests his thumb along the side of Kakashi’s nose, right where the scar starts. He wants for Kakashi to treat him like he’s family, because he thinks that maybe he’s the closest thing left in the world to it.

“That’s my eye you’re casing,” Kakashi says. He’s more expressive than Sasuke realized. 

“I said, that’s my eye you’re casing,” he repeats, “I mean, it’s Obito’s, technically, but it’s mine, for all intents and purposes, and you can’t take it.” 

“I wasn’t going to,” Sasuke says flatly. He pulls back, twisting the cap on the small bottle of alcohol back into place and setting it aside. Kakashi clears his throat. 

“It hasn’t changed much,” he says suddenly, “Konoha, I mean. Everybody still misses you.” 

Sasuke stiffens like he’s pinched a nerve somewhere. He rubs his neck. “Everybody?” 

“Naruto especially,” Kakashi says with a sad little smile. He reaches down and pulls his mask back into place, carefully setting the top edge above the deep sliver halving his nose. “Iruka-sensei and I will match now, huh?” 

“Oh,” Sasuke says, smiling politely, “That’s still going on, then.” 

“Mah,” Kakashi waves his hand dismissively, “You and the other two. Always meddling.”

“Have you forgotten their names already?” 

“Have you?” 

Sasuke flinches. He wonders if Kakashi has always been this sharp, or if he’s just meaner because he’s had a couple of years to hate Sasuke from afar. Not that he blames him, not really- there were probably better ways to cope with the genocide of his clan than deserting the village entirely and vowing to execute the heads of state. 

It wasn’t just the massacre either- he’d been so lonely. Living in the wilderness for all this time certainly didn’t help. Maybe if he had stayed, things would be better. Maybe things would be worse. 

Kakashi’s eyes soften a little, and he reaches out and pats Sasuke’s shoulder. 

“You must hate me,” Sasuke says with feigned indifference, “For leaving, or whatever.” 

“Not at all,” Kakashi says earnestly, “Why do you think I’m here now?” 

Sasuke shrugs. “I hadn’t really considered that.” 

“Considered what?”

“That you didn’t come to kill me on behalf of the ANBU or something.” 

“Never,” Kakashi says seriously, “You make it sound like I enjoyed being a tool of the state.” 

Sasuke shrugs again, and pushes Kakashi’s hand away for fear of him pulling him into an embrace. He isn’t so sure of himself that he wouldn’t shatter like china in it. 

It’s awkward, for a little while. Sasuke goes about his business, stowing away his laundry, crossing and re-crossing the river, scavenging the foothills for small game and berries. All the while, Kakashi follows at his heel like a lost dog, his chin pinched between his thumb and forefinger, head cocked to the side less like he’s impressed and more like he’s withholding criticism. 

When Sasuke cuts his finger on a thornbush one evening, he leaves it. Beside the fire that night, Kakashi takes his hand and cleans the wound carefully, then pats his knuckles and sets his hand back on his knee. They don’t speak to each other. It takes every ounce of Sasuke’s self control not to thank him. 

It comes time, after a few days, to start wandering again- when Kakashi follows, Sasuke doesn’t protest. He keeps his sharingan eye half open, paints his lids with a purple pigment and holds his hair back with a headband, his usual mask replaced with a looser veil, fitted across the still-injured bridge of his nose and hanging loosely around his mouth. It’s a decent disguise, maybe a little ugly, but Sasuke prefers not to make pretenses about his identity. If any travelling salesmen or trade post guild members recognize him, they know better than to make a show of it. Shouldn’t Kakashi’s reputation precede him just as well? 

Sasuke makes an earnest attempt not to overthink it. He tries not to think at all, in fact. 

“It’s a stupid diguise, right?” Kakashi asks once, halfway to the nearest trading post, “Convienent, but stupid.”

“Did you steal that headband from Sakura?” Sasuke asks dryly, “It looks like a little girl’s headband. I can’t believe it fits on your massive head.” 

Kakashi swats him in response. Sasuke hates himself that he considers it a tender gesture. 

  
  


Sasuke gets caught shoplifting for the first time at a trading post near Sora-ku with a pair of earrings halfway in, halfway out of his pocket. The shopkeep, an older woman, gawks at him for a moment, and then grabs the collar of his shirt and hauls him towards the door with surprising strength. Sasuke makes an undignified squawking sound, which catches Kakashi’s attention from the counter, where he’s turning a spinning display of bracelets and looking astonishingly stupid. 

The shopkeep sneers at him and shakes Sasuke by his collar. Sasuke drops his eyes, almost like he’s ashamed. 

“Is this your kid?” the shopkeep asks, her face flushing. Kakashi’s eyes widen. 

“Goodness,” he says dully, “Naruto, what did you do?” 

Sasuke rolls his eyes. The shopkeep shakes him again, rattling the earrings he’d tried to steal in her free hand. 

“This is heirloom silver,” she says by way of an explanation, “Do you have any idea how expensive it is?” 

Kakashi raises a hand over his mouth in a mock gasp. Sasuke wonders if there’s a practical way to chidori through him without injuring the shopkeep in the process. 

“Naruto?  _ My  _ Naruto?” Kakashi is practically shrieking, “I thought I raised you better than this!” 

He wags his finger at Sasuke, and then goes for his coin purse, much to the delight of the shopkeep. Sasuke suspects the earrings weren’t all that valuable- there were at least ten or fifteen identical pairs on the rack he’d found them on, and he feels a little guilty watching Kakashi shell out his meager savings to keep him from a tongue lashing- but only a little guilty. He still isn’t sure he trusts Kakashi as far as he can throw him. 

Kakashi bows to the shopkeep and apologizes again, then seizes Sasuke by his wrist and jerks him out of the store and back onto the street. Sasuke stiffens a little- more annoyed than anything- and Kakashi hooks his finger into the pouch at the front of his thigh. 

“I can’t believe you,  _ Naruto _ ,” Kakashi says wickedly, shaking his sleeve above his pouch, “Didn’t I raise you better than this?” 

Sasuke hears the distinct, clattering sound of coins against jewelry. Before he can open his mouth, Kakashi shoves his shoulder and turns him around, pushing him forward a step. 

“I’m at a loss for words,” Kakashi continues, quieter now as they make their way down the street. He yanks Sasuke’s collar back and slips something down the back of his shirt- Sasuke feels fairly confident that it’s a handful of necklaces. 

“All this time on your own,” Kakashi grumbles, tugging lightly on his earlobe, “And I thought maybe you’d at least be half-decent at stealing.” 

They decide to spend the night beneath a cliff somewhere, overlooking two trading towns about a mile and a half apart from each other. When, every so often, Sasuke stumbles as they make the trek through the foothills, Kakashi catches his shoulder or the small of his back. Sasuke doesn’t have the wherewithal to snap at him anymore. Kakashi is a welcome interruption in the routine he’s created for himself. 

Kakashi, Sasuke learns, likes to sleep sitting upright to relieve the tension in his back. He’s lying on his side on his bedroll towards the edge of the cliff, Kakashi sitting beside him against a boulder with his arms folded across his chest, his thumb keeping his place in one of his paperbacks. 

Sasuke props himself up on his elbow. 

Below them, the trading posts glow yellow against the blue of the dusk, twin beacons of life in the wilderness. He’s lost track of how many posts he’d seen in the past however many years- he can barely remember how many years he’s been gone. He considers asking Kakashi, and then decides against it. His former sensei- former?- looks exhausted, like he couldn’t sleep peacefully if he tried. 

But nothing changes. If there were such a thing as chronic homesickness, Sasuke would have it, and looking at the trading posts and the hidden villages from any mountain’s peak would only make it worse. 

He rolls onto his back, studying the smattering of stars above him, trying desperately to recall the stories that belong to each one, like matching terms to definitions on one of Iruka’s written tests. 

He has no reason to be homesick. There wasn’t really much for him to miss, anyways. 

“Itachi’s dead, you know,” Kakashi says suddenly. 

Sasuke stops breathing for a moment. His chest feels a little tight. 

“I’d heard that,” he says, trying to sound indifferent.

“I suspect you’ve heard a lot of things,” Kakashi continues. Sasuke hears him set his book aside and shift a little, like he’s stretching his back. He wonders if this might be an act of psychological warfare or something, but he sincerely doubts it at this point. It would be easier to subdue him physically somehow, or to put him under a genjutsu long enough to get him back to Konoha and into a jail cell. He trusts Kakashi, he really does, probably against his better judgement.

“You’d be correct,” Sasuke says dryly. 

Kakashi sighs, and gets to his feet. Sasuke pushes himself into a sitting position, trying his best to keep his expression steely and indifferent. Kakashi’s veil is halfway undone, hanging from behind one of his ears, and his eyes are so sincere that it makes Sasuke feel a little sick. 

“He wasn’t well,” Kakashi says by way of explanation, “Though I suspect you knew that, too.”

Sasuke shrugs. His mouth feels cottony. The sky looks a little bit darker, hangs a little bit lower. “The Uchiha have a history of respiratory problems. Madara wrote a lot about it in his journals. I’m not surprised. Plus- you know, he did massacre our entire clan. He probably had a lot more wrong with him than just with his lungs.” 

“Ha,” Kakashi sits beside him in a hurdler’s stretch, bracing his hands on either side of his hips. He looks pointedly away from Sasuke. 

“...It’s why I left,” he says quietly, “I had always assumed that Itachi did what he did of his own accord.” 

Sasuke swallows thickly. “What is that supposed to mean?” 

Kakashi turns his head away. 

“Ignorance is bliss.”

“Cut the crap,” Sasuke says, cursing the increasingly hysterical pitch of his voice, “I’ve always hated that about you. You love speaking in riddles, and you almost never have anything worth working to understand. If it’s that important, you can just tell me.” 

“Itachi died at home,” Kakashi murmurs, “It was- It was never his idea.”

“Then whose fucking idea  _ was  _ it?” Sasuke snarls. He has half a mind to shove Kakashi off the edge of the cliff, but he suspects that wouldn’t accomplish anything. He isn’t sure he can move, anyways, but he can feel his face getting hot, like he might start screaming or crying if Kakashi doesn’t speak candidly with him for once in his fucking life. 

Kakashi looks unbelievably sad. With only a moment’s hesitation, he reaches forward and wraps his arms around Sasuke’s shoulders- or rather, he tries to. Sasuke jerks back, his hands raised defensively. Kakashi frowns. 

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he says desperately, “I don’t know why you’re here, or what you want from me, or what the fuck I’m supposed to take away from this.” 

“Sasuke-” 

“I said to cut the crap,” he says sharply, peripherally aware that his sharingan is active now, “Just tell me what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Sasuke-” 

“Are you trying to tell me that the village government had something to do with it?” Sasuke asks hoarsely, “Because I’d believe you. I wouldn’t even ask for any proof. They’ve always hated us. They’ve always hated  _ me _ , you know how Hiruzen-” 

“ _ Sasuke. _ ” Kakashi rests his hand over his so gently that it makes him feel a little nauseous, and Sasuke doesn’t think about it for a second longer, he just lunges forward and throws his arms around Kakashi’s shoulders, pressing his face against the man’s chest. 

Evidently, Kakashi is a little startled, but Sasuke doesn’t care. He doesn’t care that Kakashi isn’t his father, isn’t his mother, isn’t anything close to his family, because Kakashi is here, and Kakashi is just as lonely as he is. Besides, he doesn’t think Fugaku would let him cry like Kakashi does. 

Unquestioningly, Kakashi puts his arms around Sasuke, and they sit together like that for what feels like an eternity. Sasuke’s breath comes in short, shuddering bursts, and Kakashi rubs his back, grateful for somebody to look after again. He isn’t sure if he’d say Sasuke had  _ always _ been his favorite- he was an absolute terror to deal with, frankly- but he thinks that maybe, just maybe, they understood each other in a way very few people in the village would ever be able too. 

When Sasuke finally pulls away, the fire they’d built has died, and his face is pink with blood. Kakashi empties his canteen onto his scrap of veil and cleans his face for him. Sasuke watches him vacantly.

To Kakashi, it feels like staring into a mirror. 

Sasuke falls asleep in the early hours of the morning, splayed out on his bedroll with his head resting at Kakashi’s knees. 

Kakashi kisses his forehead once, pulls Sasuke’s blanket up to his chin, and stays awake to watch the sunrise. When Sasuke sleeps until noon, he says nothing. Instead, he offers him breakfast. 

After it gets harder, it starts to get easier. 

They spend another night on the cliff, Sasuke mostly sitting in stunned silence, speaking only to ask Kakashi the occasional question. 

_ “Did you tell anyone else?”  _

_ “No, I wasn’t sure who to tell.”  _

_ “Does anyone else know?” _

_ “No, I didn’t ask.”  _

_“Did you see him?”_ _  
_ _“I did, at the end. He recognized me, I think, and he said he was sorry. It wasn’t me he needed to apologize to.”_

Truthfully, Itachi had recognized him. He’d taken Kakashi’s hand in his own, rattling the cuffs on the rail of his hospital bed, had told him everything over the course of about an hour, had begged him to find Sasuke, and to apologize for him. Kakashi couldn’t bring himself to indulge Itachi’s dying wishes. Even then, he had the option to refuse Hiruzen’s orders. It was his choice, ultimately, to do what he did, and Kakashi had no other way of holding him accountable. When Sasuke was ready to hear everything Itachi had told him, Kakashi  _ would _ tell him- but it would have to wait until the timing was right, until the world had righted itself. 

For now, he reads, and goes down the cliff to the nearest spring every so often to make sure Sasuke has water when he wakes up. Eventually, they’ll leave. Eventually, they’ll do something about it- but for now, he lets his student grieve, if only because Minato never afforded him that luxury. 

When it comes down to it, he thinks he probably hates Konoha just as much as Sasuke does. 

Eventually, Sasuke more or less comes around, and they leave for a distant trading post where it’d been rumored there were advanced copies of  _ Icha-Icha _ , if only because it gives them something to do. 

They take winding, barely-trodden paths through the forest, and Sasuke stops every so often to collect a garter snake. By the late afternoon of their first day travelling, Sasuke has collected an impressive bouquet of the things, and he offers them to Kakashi with a spiteful grin. 

Kakashi sneers. 

“I picked these for you,” Sasuke says wryly, “You’re going to refuse them, after I worked so hard to collect them for you?” 

“You were practically glued to my hip,” Kakashi mutters, raising a hand to his forehead in mock exasperation, “I don’t know how I didn’t notice you collecting  _ snakes _ .” 

“I hid them in my pocket,” Sasuke says plainly. 

“ _ Still _ .”

“Still.” 

Kakashi sighs. “At least you seem like you’re feeling better.” 

“A little,” Sasuke says, shrugging, “You’ve- uh. You’ve helped. A lot. I feel less alone with you here. It’s not the same as having, like, Naruto or Sakura here, but it helps.” 

“I’m glad,” Kakashi says honestly, “Really, I am. Now-” 

There’s a sharp sound as a branch snaps somewhere behind them, and they whirl around simultaneously, almost like the meager three or so days they’d spent together had left them in perfect sync. Sasuke drops the snake bouquet and draws his sword quickly, his sharingan whirring to life as he positions himself at Kakashi’s vulnerable side. Kakashi, by contrast, flies into the start of a seal before he freezes. 

Naruto is standing at the front of the formation, looking just as startled as the two of them. Sasuke feels his heart skip a beat, and his expression softens considerably. 

Sakura and a jounin Sasuke doesn’t think he’d ever seen before are flanking Naruto’s sides, looking equally terrified, but all Sasuke can see is  _ Naruto _ \- all he can think is how much he’s missed him, how much he hates him, how much he thinks, he  _ thinks  _ he loves him. He doesn’t move, just takes every precious second of inaction to better memorize the ocean blue of his eyes, the loose, awestruck set of his mouth, the curl patterns of his blonde hair- which, Sasuke notes, had grown considerably since the last time they met. 

“Your-” he swallows thickly, “Your hair grew out.” 

Naruto looks at him, stupefied. “Wh-” he crinkles his nose, “What?” 

A pillar of wood shoots up from the ground, and before Sasuke can properly react, Kakashi has split it in half with a lightning jutsu and thrown himself in front of his body, his arm protectively across his chest. 

“Yamato,” he says sharply, “If you even try to lay a hand on him, I’ll kill the three of you myself.” 

Sasuke stiffens. It feels, strangely, like a switch has been flipped, like all of the life has come back to Kakashi. It’s terrifying- he feels thirteen again, like he’s staring down Zabuza and Haku, like he’s never had to fight a day in his life, not really. He has to remind himself, again, that Kakashi isn’t here to hurt him. 

The jounin- presumably, Yamato- freezes with his hands in the snake seal, his eyes wide and questioning. He lowers his hands slowly, and Kakashi’s posture relaxes considerably, enough that Sakura and Naruto take the cue and lunge forward, throwing their arms around Sasuke’s shoulders. 

Sasuke makes an undignified sound as Naruto’s face collides with his shoulder, his face heating up when he feels his arms slip around his waist. Sakura grabs his shoulders and buries her face in the fabric of his shirt, and before he knows it the three of them are in a heap on the ground together, Sasuke on his knees and Naruto’s face pressed against his neck while Sakura clutches the both of their shirts for dear life. 

“What the fuck-” Sasuke gasps, his chest tight from where his former teammates are squeezing him, “Oh, what the  _ fuck _ -” 

“We thought you were  _ dead _ ,” Sakura chokes, “You fucking asshole-”

“What the fuck,” Sasuke repeats, raising his hands and slowly pulling them closer. Naruto is kissing the underside of his jaw, practically blubbering, and Sakura squeezes his hand once before she withdraws and sits on her haunches. 

When Naruto finally pulls back, Sasuke becomes aware that he’s crying too, again, and he leans forward to rest their foreheads together. Naruto immediately reaches out and cups his jaw. 

_ It’s summer _ , Sasuke thinks randomly, listening intently to Naruto’s trembling breath and the sound of cicadas in the forest around them. The sunset is picturesque, orange and pink and almost green behind the canopy of trees and thorn bushes.

“We found you,” Naruto says triumphantly.

“Were you looking for me?” Sasuke asks, trying for humor. 

Naruto laughs brokenly and winds Sasuke’s hair around his fingers, holding him close. 

“Well, yeah,” he says, “Not today, but- yeah. Yeah. We were.  _ I  _ was.” 

“What luck,” Kakashi says playfully. Sasuke feels his hand on his shoulder, feels Sakura’s hand over his again. He tries not to lose himself in the feeling. 

“What the  _ fuck _ ?” Yamato cries. Kakashi and Sakura shush him in perfect unison. Sasuke closes his eyes and focuses on the feeling of Naruto’s hands on the back of his head, the way he’s pushing closer, closer, like he wants nothing more than to lean forward and just kiss him for hours. 

“We’re defecting,” Sakura says curtly, “We’re trying to defect here, Yamato. Do you mind?” 

“He doesn’t mind,” Kakashi says. 

Sasuke snorts. 

“You three are fucking ridiculous. Oh-” he tilts his head to the side slightly, “And Yamato,  it’s nice to meet you.” 


End file.
